Ogden Marathon 2013

Considering the kind of day I had on Saturday, May 18th I really had no intentions on doing a post, obviously since it's been 2 weeks...#FAIL.  This race was nothing short of craptastic for me, the race itself was AWESOME, very well organized and everything from the packet pick up to the finish line was perfect. 

This is the only picture I have from this race!  I hope you like my HUGE muscles :)

I had done quite a few things different leading up to this race to insure a PR, too bad for me it didn't work!

Looking back on DailyMile I realized that I was a complete idiot leading up to my last 2 marathons, can't remember what I did before DailyMile but it was probably more of the same.  I came up with a fabu plan for the week that would leave me well rested and ready to run.
Monday-Shoulders and abs with a 3 mile run.
Tuesday-Chest, triceps, back and biceps with a 3 mile run.
Wednesday-Core workout with an hour long spin class. NIGHT-Jorge's House of Pain(massage)
Thursday-Slept in and rode my spin bike for about an hour.  Yoga at night.
Friday-Slept in, rode the spin bike for 40 minutes and did a 2.25 mile run. NIGHT-P90X stretch

I also watched everything I ate and had my feedings every 3 hours I'm a hungry little gal!  I can't think of anything more I could have done to set myself up for a good race.  I had a good solid 5 hours of sleep before my 2:50 a.m. wake up call.  Got all ready and Holly and Jorge picked my sorry butt up at 3:30.  We drove up to Ogden, about an hour long drive.  I felt ready to run and have a grrrreat time.

We met up with Josh, Joanna, Dr. Lloyd, Joanna's friend and Paul.  We said goodbye to Pam (who was supposed to run but is injured) and Ashley (She be prego)!

The wait at the starting line was beautiful.  It wasn't raining...yet and it wasn't very cold.  We had a great time and then it was time to line up.  We had talked to Bill about pacing us to a sub 3:30 finish and we finally found him at the starting line.  By this time it was raining and it rained for the remainder of the race, seriously?!?

For the first 7 miles we were right on track, we had banked a little time and we kept a good pace.  My heart rate was good, I felt like I could maintain the pace for the remainder of the race.  Then I started feeling weird.  My quads were frozen and I felt like I couldn't control my legs, I didn't know how I was still running.  My body didn't really feel cold but my quads did...weird.  I tried to pay attention to my form, I prayed...a lot!  I was slowing down and I knew it.  At mile 8 Holly asked how I was, I sarcastically said that I was good.  She admitted that her legs felt the same as mine and from there it was all downhill.  I don't mean that the course was downhill at this point, but our pace was!

Mile 16 was for McKenna and I'm so glad it was.  It was a beautiful mile, painful but then again Kenna has experienced a lot of physical pain this past year so I sucked it up and kept going.
I was having a VERY hard time eating or drinking much of anything.  I think I wanted my PR so bad that trying to get my fuel was taking too much energy so I just gave up on it.  At one point Holly said to refuel before our big hill near mile 13.  I got my Sport Beans out and ran holding the bag until mile 17 when I finally decided that I HAD to eat some.  By mile 16 my stomach starting getting VERY angry!!!  My stomach NEVER hurts during marathons...ever.  We had finally reached the downhill, fast part of the race and my legs wanted nothing to do with any of it.  It felt better to run uphill but unfortunately the rest of the course was pretty much straight downhill.

Around mile 17 Holly threw her pace band as a souvenir for Jorge, I wonder if he ever saw it?!?  We were hating it but kept plugging along.  I thought to myself "Wow people must be feeling really good, they must have saved themselves for the downhill."  No IDIOT, you are slowing down, waaaaay down.  Our splits are actually quite comical.

I had to take a potty break at mile 21-ish, which I shouldn't have even bothered.  Thought it might help my tummy issues but nope!  At mile 22 we saw Pam and we were a mess.  We were all bawling all over the place, we wanted to stop to give her a hug but she yelled at us to keep going.  We love Pam!!!

At mile 24 a lovely man offered us cookies, did I hear him right?!?  Yes, yes I did and grabbed one and went on my way.  I wasn't sure what it would do to my tummy but at this point I really didn't think it could get much worse so why not.

Mile 25-26.2 were for Kobe, Pam and Holly's Aunt Leslie and late Uncle Dave.  I wanted to walk soooooo bad!  We chanted Kobe, Pam, Leslie, Dave!  We kept repeating that and somehow it helped.  We saw the Ogden Temple and I told Angel Moroni to play his horn...louder I can't hear it!!!  At this point I think we were both hallucinating, here came the unicorns and Smurfs ;)

We saw Jake, Kobe, McKenna, Jenne, Kenya and Kaiya cheering for us.  They had made signs and it really meant a lot that they had all come out in the pouring rain to cheer for us.

As soon as we crossed the finish line I saw a table with water bottles and COKE!!!  I yelled, “I NEED A COKE!”  I don’t even like Coke but at that moment that was all I wanted.   We got our medals, took a couple of goofy pictures, spilled Coke on my shoes and then Jake and the rest of the fam found us.  We were freezing!  Jake, being the gentleman that he is, gave me his hoodie.  Then me, being the gentlewoman that I am, shared it with Holly…it was a big hoodie!  We got our drop bags and got outta there as fast as we could.

We ended up finishing in 3:42:17, only 12+ minutes off our goal time…POOP! 

7 Mi:	54:51 Pace: 7:51
Half:	1:45:27 Pace: 8:03
18 Mi:	2:26:47 Pace: 8:10
23.1 M	3:12:33 Pace: 8:21

Average pace was 8:29

Since it has been 2 weeks and I’ve had time to search, ponder and pray about this :) I have decided that although we didn’t reach our goal at least we didn’t quit!  We were smart enough to listen to our bodies and slow down.  I knew I had another marathon in 2 weeks that I REALLY didn’t want to miss because of a stupid injury!  I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe I’ve already had my glory day in the hot sun maybe my current PR will remain my PR forever.

With all that being said, I would HIGHLY recommend this race!  The biggest thing I noticed was that there was no weaving in and out of a huge crowd when the race started.  I have NEVER ran a race like that.  The course was beautiful and for Pete’s sake they had Otis Spunkmeyer cookies and Coke. 

I didn't get even one picture from this race, not even a pre race outfit shot, nothing….lame!